Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-02-16

THE CRUMB BRUSH.
It was the crumb brush did all the harm.
You know the white horse hair brush, with an
ivory back and handle, the shape of q reap
ing hook or a Turkish saber, they use In mid
dle-clas houses when the servant, or some
times the lady of the house or her daughter,
goes round the table brushing the crumbs of
the cloth after dinner before the dessert is set
on the table.
Well, the brush was my ruin.
Ihad not the slightest intention Of marry.
ing. At %, you understand I had plenty
Of time to think about that. The head clerk
in the ofice-a real good fellow, who used to
forge my name on the presence sheet when
ever was late-had often told me SO.
IF I were you I should not marry at all.
I do not say that because I have been sep
arated from my wife these last ten years, or
because I have had three lawsuits to disown
her three last children. But, if I were you, I
should not marry"
And l had already found in La Rochefou-
cauld a thought, which even in those days I
instinctively admired, but of which I under
stood the full depth now: There are good
marriages; but there are none that are en-
tirely delightful"
Besides I was perfectly happy, and I had
arranged my bachelor existence to my entire
satisfaction.
/ was then-as I nm nova clerk in one of
the public offices. Five hundred and forty
dollars a year and a Christmas box is not so
bad when one is %. The office I belonged to
(the Office of the morguesa and dissecting rooms)
and the branch I had charge of THAT of dis
tributing the bodies among the different dis
secting rooms) were not very %enlivening,
I grant you, and I sat all day in front of
six green cardboard boxes bearing this in
scription: distribution of corpses," which I
had written on them in large, round hand
with a reed. But then I knew my particular
department thoroughly. I dispatched my
business in a couple of hours and killed the
rest of the time with the charades and riddles
in The Mondre Illustre. l had gotto be very
clever with them; I used to send my answer
and then have the glory of reading my nam
in the paper, between "The Military Club of
Terreguemines" and "The Habitues OF the
Cafe de rEurope at Pithiviers."
Then the time spent at the Office was a sac
rifice made for my daily bread. My real life
began at 4 o'clock, when, after washing my
hands and hanging up my old alpaca Office
coat, I sailed forth and walked away with
even measured tread toward the distant
quarter where I lived. down the Boulevard
des 1nvalides and thu Boulevard Montpar-
nasse.
On summer evenings especially it was de-
lightful. The slanting sun rays, at the most
effective hour" as the painters say, gilded the
old trees, those that were cut down in that
horrible siege and replaced by stupid naples
with an iron grating round their roots, like q
door scraper. The trees we had then were
good old elms, good old lime trees, good old
chestnuts that had been slowly growing up
since the time Of Louis XIV-dating
back to the France Of former days, when men
were. patient, when they liked things to be
solid and lasting, when they took their time
about planting a tree or founding IN institu-
ton. How good it was to walk under their
stout branches, under their thick foliage, that
the sinking sun riddled through and through
with warm sparksl
Before the railway station De rOuest there
a halt. The waiter used to keep a table
for me next to the window on the first floor
Of the little restaurant, and there I ate my
dinner slowly, watching the crowds pouring
out from the trains from Versailles, the two
exactly alike with the red
in their shakos, weighed down by
their heavy trousers and holding up their
sword %scabbards in their hands; the pairs of
lovers, very tired with their days holiday,
great sheaves Of wild flowers, and
The old botanist, with his gray beard, in dusty
and a straw hat, with his tin box
at his back. When the evening
lrew in I went and took my cup Of coffee in
the open air outside a cafe, and then, most
I went home.
Who lives in it now, I wonder, my sky par
or in the Rue d'Assas? Some Philistine,
who will nave dishonored its walls
~ hanging them with chrome portraits of
men. In my time it was only a poor
mans room, but it was furnished to my taste;
t was the room of q dreamer, of a home bird,
md every flower Of the paper on its wall held
he memory of a ~reverie. I had my flute
here, my pipe, a thick carpet, a great arm
:hair with a sloping back, very comfortable
% sit in before the fire reading and dreaming;
N a shelf I had the books 1 know by heart,
Kindly skeptics, Montaigne n La Fontaine,
md, for gentler moments, Dickens; and OF
ZACH side of the looking glass my beautiful
of the "Coucher de la Marie" and the
'Hasard heureux de rEscarpolette."
It was delicious to wake up there in the
I idled about the room in my shirt
leeves, smoking my first pipe, and watching
he smoke fly off in a golden SUN ray through
ny window, thrown wide open. I could see
green masses of the foliage in the Luxem-
,ourg, the domes of the Pantheon, and the
Val-de-Grace, and the sky-a great deal of
ky; the supple swallows passed backward and
onward continually, quite close to me, with
he little cry, "euik," as if they were wishing
ne good morning. But the evenings were
till more exquisite-the starry evenings,
When, after had read a few pages and played
little Mozart Oh my flute, I leaned out of
ny window before all the splendors of the
odiac, listening to such scraps of waltzes as
he night wind bore me from Butler.
Yes, I grant you, there was a lack Of wo-
nen in my life. And that was just what I
vas imprudent enough to confess to one of
CO1lDdll1OIS az CA0 OAACCs ~ Ou6uO w |
ave mistrusted that fellow, a practical man
vho had learned shoemalking as an amuse-
lent for economy's sake, and who made his
wn shoes in the office in his leisure moments.)
Ie said at once:
II have just got what you want. Thirty
francs and expectations. Her
1other always has her lips blue; she will die
t heart disease"
1
I was not at all decided. I made objections.
'ah! in a fortnights time I was already
compromised; I had accepted an invitation to
from the young lady's family.
The crumb brush did the rest.
It was at dessert. The dinner had been
cry pleasant, very cordial. The mamma
a very nice woman, although she did
ear her husbands photograph set as a
rooch; and though he was rather solemn,
nd had begun with the soup to talk of the
onduct France should hold toward Russia,
ill the father did not displease me, with his
reek skull cap and his head like a white
aarded model, who sits for "Moses" and God
10 Father" I had dined well, too well.
he meat had evidently been roasted before a
God fire, and there was some very nice Bur
,udv with a hO1n1et like viO1ets- hepan